TSN Worried About ACE Summary Edits, Compiling Wish List for Document Imaging
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted the August, September, and October/November Trade Support Network monthly activity reports, which summarize the activity of all of the TSN Committees and Subcommittees for those months.
(TSN is a group of trade representatives who provide input into the design and development of modernization projects, such as the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE). CBP has been meeting with the TSN since May 2001 regarding the development of ACE. TSN consists of members of the trade community, including trade associations, importers, brokers, carriers, sureties, and others.)
The following are highlights of the reports:
TSN Wants More Fee & Tariff Announcements as Cushion if ACE Edits Not Ready
As part of its on-going business, the Entry Committee met with the Transition Committee to review the ACE edits. The committee made proposals to CBP as to what may be able to be done to mitigate the risks of the edits not being available in ACE Entry Summary processing.
Better info on fees and tariff changes needed. Suggestions included better documentation for items such as merchandise processing fee (MPF)/ Harbor Maintenance Fee (HMF) rules so the trade knows when the fees are required or not required.1 Currently this information is spread among many directives and documents. Another suggestion was to ask CBP to send out a CSMS message to notify the trade that they made changes to the tariff information as they make the changes so that they do not have out of date tariff information while waiting for CBP to put out a large tariff update.
Trade had requested 24 high priority edits. In April 2010, officials announced that CBP was creating a task force on the 24 “high priority” ACE entry summary edits that were requested by the trade. The task force was to include CBP and trade members, and would examine how to best achieve the objectives of enhanced entry summary edits within the current budget environment.
(In 2007, CBP proposed that 63 current Automated Commercial System (ACS) edits specific to the commercial preparation of the entry summary not be carried over into ACE. TSN reviewed and evaluated CBP's proposal and responded with 24 edits that members believed were critical to keep. CBP's proposal was originally called “Edit Lite” and is also referred to as "Edit Modification.")
Automated Export Requirements Submitted on Interfacing Export Manifest, Commodity Data
A high level “Automated Export Requirements Document” has been prepared and submitted to Cindy Allen, Office of Trade (OT), and Steve Stavinhoa, Office of Field Operations (OFO). This effort was focused on documenting automated export manifest functionality and interfacing export manifest and commodity data.
The document incorporated high level automated export processing requirements for CBP, Participating Government Agencies (PGAs) and the trade community and will be used by CBP management to request funding and resources for this effort.
Document Imaging List to be Provided in January
With a solution in place to automate certain documents for certain PGAs, the Multi-Modal Manifest (MMM) committee is gathering information on documents appropriate to manifest. The list will be provided to Cindy Allen in January 2011 for further consideration.2
GIFs Reviewed as Part of Cargo Release Re-Validation Effort
As part of CBP’s cargo release requirement re-validation effort, the Account Management committee held several conference call meetings to discuss the process for reviewing the user requirement Great Idea Forms (GIFs) submitted by this committee related to cargo release functionality.2
This review is part of a larger effort during which several TSN committees will be reviewing their cargo release user requirement GIFs to determine if they are still relevant, accurate, and up to date. The effort also includes the mapping of these GIFs to the applicable process within the CBP ITDS Concept of Operations (ConOps). The committee will hold a series of conference calls with the full Account Management committee to complete this re-validation and submit a final report to the CBP cargo release team.
1See ITT’s Online Archives or 12/21/10 news, 10122120, for BP summary of CBP issuing FAQs on user fees.
2See ITT’s Online Archives or 11/18/10 news, 10111824, for BP summary of CBP saying that the trade can participate in the ACE Document Imaging System (DIS).
3See ITT’s Online Archives or 11/12/10 news, 10111226, for BP summary of CBP stating that cargo release will be the next big ACE development effort.
(See ITT’s Online Archives or 11/01/10 news, 10110110, for BP summary of CBP and ITDS officials providing an update on ACE.)